Farewell for 2010!

[Vlad!]

Tomorrow I'm going to be going to visit my parents, and next week I'm going down to Miami for a conference and a little side entertainment. I might get bored and check the Phorum on my phone occasionally, but I'm trying to remain unplugged as much as possible. We'll see how that goes.

In any case, I hope you pholks have a great holiday, and I'll see you next year!

[Vlad!]

(B)observations from my trip:

They should have a separate train car for those traveling with children under 12.

A question I got really tired of answering is "why didn't you fly down?". When I gave the answer "I feel that the TSA are violating our civil liberties and treating us like criminals, and I don't want to support an industry which condones this", I got a variety of responses, the most frequent being a look that suggests "oh, you're one of those people" coupled with a sudden need to be somewhere else. Interestingly, the more recently the person had flown, the more likely he or she was to agree with me. I heard one horror story from a woman who had inadvertently gotten into the pat-down line instead of the body scanner line and felt so dirty and violated afterward that she could barely get on her flight.

Those who live in California or other warm/tropical zones will probably say "yeah, so?" to this, but experiencing 70 degree F weather in late December/early January is very perplexing to my system. Miami is crazy. I walked or took the people mover pretty much everywhere I went, and I never felt the need to wear anything warmer than sandals and a t-shirt. If I lived there I think I would miss having seasons, but it's a great place to vacation.